Pre-installation

Arch Linux should run on any x86_64-compatible machine with a minimum of 512 MB RAM. A basic installation with all packages from the base group should take less than 800 MB of disk space. As the installation process needs to retrieve packages from a remote repository, a working internet connection is required.

To switch to a different console—for example, to view this guide with ELinks alongside the installation—use the Alt+arrowshortcut. To edit configuration files, nano, vi and vim are available.

Set the keyboard layout

The default console keymap is US. To list available layouts, run ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz. To modify the layout, append a corresponding file name to loadkeys(1), omitting path and file extension. For example, run loadkeys de-latin1 to set a German keyboard layout.

Installation

Select the mirrors

Packages to be installed must be downloaded from mirror servers, which are defined in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist. On the live system, all mirrors are enabled, and sorted by their synchronization status and speed at the time the installation image was created.

The higher a mirror is placed in the list, the more priority it is given when downloading a package. You may want to edit the file accordingly, and move the geographically closest mirrors to the top of the list, although other criteria should be taken into account.

This file will later be copied to the new system by pacstrap, so it is worth getting right.

Reboot

Optionally manually unmount all the partitions with umount -R /mnt: this allows noticing any "busy" partitions, and finding the cause with fuser(1).

Finally, restart the machine by typing reboot: any partitions still mounted will be automatically unmounted by systemd. Remember to remove the installation media and then login into the new system with the root account.

Post-installation

See General recommendations for system management directions and post-installation tutorials (like setting up a graphical user interface, sound or a touchpad).